For those of you who want to take advantage of the new features of the Flash player 10.1 and AIR2 using Flash Builder 4: the Flex 4.1 SDK includes Flash Player 10.1 and AIR 2. Just download the Flex 4.1 SDK, unzip it and point your Flash Builder projects towards the new location. To see the new API’s (MultiTouch, Geolocation, Accelerometer…) show up in code hinting simply change the target Flash Player version in the project’s properties to point to 10.1.0. That’s all! Cheers to Renaun for pointing this out.

Amazon has announced support for embedded video and audio clips in Kindle apps for iPad, iPhone and iPod touch. The first books to take advantage of this new technology are Rick Steves’ London by Rick Steves and Together We Cannot Fail by Terry Golway.

It’s a tiny improvement, given the small number of titles that support audio and video embeds, but it has interesting implications. Now, the Kindle experience is officially more advanced, at least in certain aspects, on the iPad than on the Kindle. Of course, the Kindle is a very different beast from the iPad: its e-ink screen aims, first and foremost, to make reading books an enjoyable, effortless experience.

The iPad’s screen, while far more advanced in other areas, is (at least in theory) not so easy on the eyes, especially in longer reading sessions. Read here the announcement.

Hi all, what I’ve been into lately is testing some tools for getting a descent cross platform development framework. What I’ve been testing most was PhoneGap, Appcelerator Titanium, Golden Gecko and Whoop. The last 2 are not open platforms neither do they target developers (but rather designers) so I won’t mention them any further. For those of you who may be interested you may contact the guys for a demo. The first 2 are open source. Read more »

Adobe released a test version of Flash to the public about a month ago, but this is the real launch of the finished product. Flash 10.1 should now be available for download on phones using the latest version of Android, 2.2, which is known as FroYo.

And the company says it has shipped Flash to its other device partners, so that Flash should soon be available on BlackBerry, Palm webOS, Windows Phone 7, LiMo, MeeGo, and Symbian phones — basically, all the major smartphones except for Apple’s.

Read the full article here.

Adobe Systems Incorporated announced the release of Adobe® Flash® Player 10.1 to mobile platform partners. Redesigned from the ground up with new performance and mobile specific features, Flash Player 10.1 is the first release that brings the full Web across desktops and devices.

Mobile users will now be able to experience millions of sites with rich applications and content inside the browser including games, animations, rich Internet applications (RIAs), data presentations and visualizations, ecommerce, music, video, audio and more. Flash Player 10.1 allows you to make your web content contextually relevant and reach more users across a wide spectrum of Internet-connected devices, including smartphones, netbooks, and PCs. New mobile-ready features take advantage of native device capabilities that include support for touch, gestures, mobile input models, accelerometer, and screen orientation, bringing unprecedented creative control and expressiveness to the mobile browsing experience.

Discover how to optimize web content for mobile delivery in this interesting article.

Watch over 100 in-depth technical sessions from WWDC 2010. You’ll learn advanced coding techniques that will show you how to enhance the capabilities of your applications with the revolutionary technologies in iOS and Mac OS X. Download the videos, then take them with you on your Mac, iPhone, or iPad to watch anytime, anywhere.

Use the Apple ID and password you used to register as an Apple Developer to log in and download WWDC 2010 session videos and slides from iTunes.
http://developer.apple.com/videos/wwdc/2010/

Few days ago Sencha just released the first HTML5 framework targeted for mobile devices: Sencha Touch.

As stated on Sencha’s website:

It comes with a comprehensive UI widget library, complete touch event management with CSS transitions and an extensive data package.

If you have an HTML5-ready browser, you can take a look the demos here.

Nokia today did a series of announcement, especially targeted towards individual developers, and with the precise aim of lowering the barriers for developing and publishing apps for Nokia devices.

The first important announcement is that, starting today, individual developers can register and publish their apps to the Ovi Store, a thing previously allowed to companies only. This is a huge step for the Ovi Store itself, as the importance of individual developers in contributing to the growth and success of application stores is absolutely primary.

The second announcement, not less important, is that Nokia started a public beta for signing Symbian apps for free. As the cost of Symbian Signed is historically one of the major targets of criticism, this step from Nokia is surely welcome and a sign of interest (maybe just a bit slow..) from Nokia towards its developers. More informations about packaging and signing are available here.

If this is not enough, Nokia just released the official release of Nokia Qt SDK, shipping with integrated support for the Smart Installer (that allows to dynamically download dependencies for your Qt apps), and allowing to publish apps for Nokia N97 mini and X6.

Absolutely well done, Nokia!

Some good news for Java developers: Java Verified has just released a new, cheaper test program for mobile applications: the Simple App Testing.

The new program will allow to test simple applications for an average cost of approximately 75 euros per app, slightly cheaper than the cost for standard test program.

But what’s a “simple app”? Here’s the definition, directly from the Java Verified website:

A simple application is defined as one which does not require midlet permissions.

There are three exceptions (where permissions are required but the app is still regarded as a simple app)

- A demo application or game that connects to a wapsite to upgrade to the full version.
- An application that has a connection to provide in-application advertising.
- An application that simply launches a browser session (formerly known as a stub application).

A bit restrictive to be honest, but it could be (with a bit of optimism) a good starting point for a more simplified, and accessible, testing and distribution model for Java apps.

UX Lx is a premier User Experience Conference and this year was a jam–packed three day event in Lisbon.

UX Lx is a premier User Experience Conference, and our speaker lineup is really the cream of the crop in the industry worldwide. They’re Usability Experts, Information Architects and Interaction Designers, all of them bestselling authors in their fields. You’ll not only be inspired by their 12 thought provoking talks but you’ll have the opportunity to learn 1 on 1 in their 16 practical workshops.

Many design & UX leaders took part to the event with interesting speeches. One of them was Brian Fling with an inspiring presentation about Designing Mobile Experiences. Below you can find slides from slideshare.com, enjoy: